


promenade

by kalypsobean



Category: My Fair Lady (1964)
Genre: Gen, Period-Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21888982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Relationships: Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins, Eliza Doolittle & Hugh Pickering, Eliza Doolittle & Mrs Higgins
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	promenade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/gifts).



Sometimes, she just had to get out of that house - it was simply too small, which is something she never thought she would ever say, not when she'd had to scrape and beg just to keep her room in the cellar. It was not that there wasn't room - her whole bed is bigger than that little room, and there were entire rooms just for one thing or another, some of which she had never even seen and some of which she was not even allowed in, like the kitchen and the Professor's den and the servant's quarters. Still, she could lay out every single one of her possessions and still have room to dance a jig should she wish to.

It was not even that there was too much space, or that it was filled with more things than any one person should have a right to accumulate over a single lifetime. She had been terrified by that once - paralysed with the fear of not knowing what would break if she so much as looked in its direction, each step uncertain and tentative lest walking into the wrong room would result in a scolding or a bath or some other dire consequence the Professor had yet to order her into.

If she could have found the proper words for it, they'd be something like 'choking' or 'tight', but while she could say them well, the words for how stifling the house is, how at odds it was that she tensed up just from walking near the study, or how her throat twisted and her breath hitched at hearing the Professor's voice filtering up the stairs and through closed doors to settle around her like a muffler in summer. It was a wholly different kind of fear, not the kind that was immediate and justified, like when the drunken toffs would loll toward her as she waited on empty streets, unable to go home until she'd sold her basket's worth. It isn't the kind that had her keeping her shawl long after the holes had grown to be nigh unpatchable, or sleeping in every single piece of clothing she owned lest she die of frostbite and her body go undiscovered for weeks save for the attention of mice. This was true restlessness, an inability to be still or to be content. While she had chosen to return, she had not expected things to change.

She had certainly not expected herself to change.

***

She took tea with Mrs Higgins once a week, on Tuesday afternoons at promptly two o'clock. Conversation was generally of little consequence, but it always made Eliza feel a little less like she was playing dress ups and about to be sent to the Tower. 

"Well, I should think so," Mrs Higgins said. "You've simply outgrown my son. Quite sensible, if I do say so." Eliza had felt brave in simply mentioning that she did not feel quite comfortable as things were, but Mrs Higgins seemed pleased, or what passed for pleased, which was more to Eliza's eyes like a faintly polite amusement, if any expression dared to escape Mrs Higgins' careful countenance.

"I stopped growing when I was old enough to put my hair up," Eliza said. She realised she had said something wrong when Mrs Higgins picked up her teacup and silenced a maid's snigger with a single glance.

"It means you've learned all that my son knows how to teach you, and is, quite frankly, rather ill-equipped to show you the rest." Mrs Higgins clarified as if she had intended to do so all along, something that Eliza did appreciate even though it seemed that Mrs Higgins deliberately said confusing things just so she could explain them. "My son has taught you about words, but not how best to use them, or indeed, that sometimes you should not use them at all. He certainly paid no mind as to how you would want to use them."

Eliza thought for a second, another thing Mrs Higgins often allowed, though at times, and especially in the company of others, sometimes Eliza felt quite slow as she organised the words in her mind and parsed them to find the right meaning. The Professor had been quite correct in his observations of the variability of the English language, and not just in how it sounded. Eliza was not yet fully confident that she would ever understand this crisp, clear English that sounded like it belonged on a stage or in a fancy palace.

"I only wanted to be a lady in a flower shop." She had wanted to be off the street, to deal with customers who had clean hands and to go home to a fire and to have nice clothes.

"My goodness. You, a shop girl? Absolutely not." Mrs Higgins' voice rose sharply and she placed her cup and saucer neatly on the tray. Eliza hurried to place hers down as well; the maid always cleared the tray when Mrs Higgins was finished her tea, and Eliza knew too much of hard work to want to make the maid come twice when she could do without a last sip of her tea.

"What else did you want?" 

"I didn't think of anything else. I still don't. I don't know where I could go, not without being married and then I'd be doing nothing but what I am and with naught to show for it." It wasn't meant to be a question because to Eliza, it was obvious - one had to be born a lady to be anything more than Eliza already was, and if she hoped to avoid that same shattering feeling as she'd had after the ball, where being an impostor weighed on her so heavily and so invisibly that she went unmarked as her efforts went to men ... She wanted to earn her place, same as she always had, not slide into the shoes of somebody else or take a position that wasn't crafted for her, that she hadn't marked out and created through her own work and her own will, with respect she'd gained with her own hands.

Mrs Higgins was quiet for longer than Eliza had been, which was quite uncharacteristic of her.

"I have a mind to travel," she said. "The Continent is quite lovely at this time of year."

"That sounds quite lovely," Eliza said, the expression coming quickly and correctly, even though she could not conjure for herself what continent or what was so lovely about it. Lovely was a wonderful word, especially when she said it to herself, drawing it out.

"My dear, silly girl. You will be accompanying me, of course. It is simply not done for a lady of my age and station to travel alone and there is nobody else in this ghastly city whom I can tolerate for more than an hour, least of all my son."

"Oh, I couldn't," Eliza said, though arguing with Mrs Higgins never ended with anything but Mrs Higgins getting her own way. The reasons were sound to her mind: she could not afford travel without an income of her own; she did not have enough clothes, certainly not to change five times a day as they were said to in Paris; she had no place to stay ... and the Professor would be lost without her, and she had just managed to make him not yell at her.

"You can and you must. Your time with my son has done nothing for your mind."

Eliza opened her mouth and Mrs Higgins held up a finger. She stopped and closed her mouth, for it was rude to sit with one's mouth open for no reason, and Mrs Higgins was that sort of Lady, the kind that wore fur like it was attached to her skin and didn't seem to ever get dirty or smelly and for whom politeness was no effort, even when making the most scathing of observations. She would sometimes tell Eliza that she could be just like that too, if she listened and observed more than she spoke - a thought that made Eliza a little dizzy, a little nauseous, and rather small.

"You have worked hard. My son is clueless about this, as he is with everything that is not about his precious work. He has failed to teach you anything of the world he has put you in. Now, don't defend him, Eliza, we both know he would not be able to find his hat if you did not put it on his head and it would be a discredit to yourself to pretend otherwise."

Mrs Higgins could also sometimes seem to reach right into Eliza's head and pick out exactly what thoughts she was about to have.

"Now, you will be doing an old lady a favour, and it would be quite the offence to refuse a favour, let alone a position."

"A position?" Eliza looked around the room, at the grey-white walls and the latticework on the empty chairs. She could fade right into them all on her own if she learned to paint her skin like the ladies did. 

"Why, yes. You do know what a companion is, do you not?"

"Mother!" A voice echoed from the front of the house. Eliza flinched, entirely without meaning to, and Mrs Higgins sat back and smiled, a sight that was at once wondrous and terrifying.

"It is settled, then. We leave as soon as preparations can be made."

***

"Absolutely not. You, travelling with my mother? I forbid it." Professor Higgins was clearly not pleased. "One week and you would become intolerably obstinate through sheer boredom. I shall put an end to this madness in the morning." 

"You will do no such thing," said Eliza. She was very careful not to move; the Professor was pacing across the den, and she was not entirely sure of her ability to stay out of shaking range or the Professor's restraint. "Indeed, I have a mind to go precisely because it irritates you so!"

The Professor paused. "Then go!" He raised his voice so rarely that it shocked Eliza to hear it, so much so that she contained her reaction precisely because of the difference; it didn't build up and become unbearable or overwhelming, or slip out because she couldn't keep it all in without screaming. "Have the time of your miserable little life! But don't come to me when you run out of funds and can no longer keep pace with my mother!"

The thought of having to chase after Mrs Higgins, who moved so carefully and deliberately lest she get a run in her stockings or commit a faux pas so slight as entering a room a second before being announced, was amusing enough to temper her tone, but she still made sure to be perfectly crisp and clear so the Professor would have no reason to attack her for that too. "I shan't have to! I'll be earning my way, good honest work as your mother's companion."

"A companion? You? Pah!" At that, the Professor stomped to the doorway and leaned against the frame, blocking Eliza's way out nearly entirely. "Companions are charming and shallow little wisps of girls, finished and educated, and you are neither! Whatever my mother is thinking, I am sure I do not understand it. Women!" 

Eliza did note the flash of hurt that preceded the anger, perhaps contributing to it, but she was not about to placate him again. It would not do for him to become insufferable simply as she ministered to his temper.

"If I am not suited to being a companion then it is entirely your fault," she said. "You promised you could pass me off as a lady's maid, after all, and then made me entirely unsuited for even that. Was it your intention to keep me dependent on you?" 

"Go, and good riddance, then!" The Professor cut himself off and stalked out of the room, leaving Eliza to her own devices. She was relieved to see him go; his outbursts had grown more petty and frequent since the ball, and most often directed at her now that she finished her lessons quickly. He almost seemed bored of her, for all that the thought of her leaving antagonised him; the lessons were not new, and as he could not simply tell her to repeat herself and then ignore her while continuing with his own work in the time it took for her to satisfy him, Eliza suspected he even resented her for it.

And yet, as she accepted a cup of tea from Mrs. Pearce and held it, watching it tremble as her hands shook, she wondered if leaving was truly best. 

***

The thing that most irritated Eliza is that the Professor was correct - she was quite bored indeed, and it seemed that in every city they stayed in, they saw the same people at the same parties. By the time they reached Paris, Eliza was entirely convinced that it did not matter where they were, all the English people only ever went to the same four places and made a quite significant attempt to only ever speak with other English people! 

It was quite a welcome relief, therefore, to attend the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and see a new face, though it perhaps should have been expected - it was too recently built for many of the more conservative travellers to risk being seen at, and Eliza had heard tell of riots at the ballet! Although it was entirely possible that said riots were merely people talking during a performance, as Eliza kept being shushed and often had to clap her hands over her mouth herself to contain her amazement at what she saw - it still felt unintuitive to show appreciation for something with silence, though.

"Colonel Pickering! I say, Colonel Pickering!" Mrs Higgins called, somehow cutting through the foyer noise without raising her voice, as if raising her programme and shaking it amplified her entire presence. 

"Mrs Higgins! And is that Eliza? Why, it is! How are you, my girl?" The Colonel excused himself from his conversation and made his way over to them, and had just arrived when the bell rang to signal the end of intermission and he disappeared into the stream of people returning to their seats

*** 

By some gracious intervention, Colonel Pickering found them again after the opera ended and offered them a ride in his carriage; it was luck, of course, that had the Colonel staying in another room at the Hôtel de Crillon, so they were able to speak as they were being driven back. He turned down Mrs Higgins' invitation to tea, for he was apparently only passing through Paris, attending to business before a sojourn in India. 

"I could do with an secretary, if I am quite honest," the Colonel said. Eliza started to imagine how India might look, although she didn't know very much about it at all. "However, I could not ask that of anyone, given the climate."

"Is it hot in India?" Eliza said. "I should think it would be quite warm." Mrs Higgins made a strangled sound that the Colonel ignored. 

"It is warm all year, and rains just as much as it does here." Eliza was just starting to be able to imagine herself wearing silks like she had seen in pictures, gathering flowers outside, where the sun made them especially bright. Perhaps in India it wouldn't matter if her words weren't perfect, and she could have a shop, and help the Colonel, and do many things she couldn't yet think of. 

"That's enough of that," said Mrs Higgins, as if she could see into Eliza's mind and had deemed those thoughts inappropriate. "If the idea of being a secretary is so attractive to you that you would travel halfway across the world to do it, you can take lessons when we return home."

"A fine idea. A fine idea," said the Colonel. "And perhaps, should you like to, you can help with my next book, Eliza."

The carriage stopped moving, but Eliza's mind didn't, and she could barely sleep, though after the Colonel had left them, Eliza and Mrs Higgins had barely spoken; Mrs Higgins had claimed tiredness and there was no reason for Eliza to doubt her. But the possibility, again, of being able to do something, and not just entertain, was so entrancing that Eliza couldn't quite let it go, not even to fully dream of it. It seemed, perhaps, that she was not entirely doomed to a life of fetching slippers and hats; not yet, anyway.


End file.
